Craig and Connie Cook to sailed into early retirement aboard an Earthship. “We would still be working,” Craig said. “We left at 55 because we have no bills.” A lack of utility bills for their home, coupled with a lack of ongoing maintenance costs, allowed the Cooks to build a home for $70,000, and minimize … Read more
A tower, assembled from 10,000 bricks, has been made from mushrooms. “This is a hybrid of what I call an ancient technology of mushrooms and a totally new technology of computation and engineering,” says architect David Benjamin. The 40ft (12m) structure he is referring to currently sits in a courtyard at MoMA PS1, an art … Read more
Co-founder of the Natural Building Collective, Peter McIntosh has shared this progress of a building at the Helderberg Nature Reserve in Cape Town, South Africa. This building will be a multi-purpose center for the City of Cape Town and Cape Nature. They have used tires, rammed earth, eco-bricks and natural plasters to build the center. … Read more
Tightly packed straw in prefabricated rectangular wooden wall frames are being assembled for housing in various places in Europe and Russia. Once the frames are assembled the walls can be lime-rendered. These houses perform well under resistance tests. Straw is available in abundance, is sustainable, has a low carbon footprint, can build strong and durable … Read more
Ladakh has a long and harsh winter season when temperatures hit as low as -30°C (-22°F). These long winters reduce the cropping season to barely four or five months in a year. Other factors include low precipitation largely in the form of heavy snowfall, high wind velocity, sparse plant density, thin atmosphere with high volumes … Read more
Insu-ram is a system of assembling blocks inspired by the cells in the wing covers of certain beetles that allow internal air flow to circulate. Insu-ram both cools and insulates a space from external heat without the use of machinery. The external pattern of the block generates a micro-shading effect that reduces the solar contact … Read more